It's Not Me
by xYaoiGirlx
Summary: Kai could finally admit to Rei that he loves him...too bad it's on an unresponsive Rei's deathbed after a car crash. Against all odds, a group of 'mad scientists' bring Rei back to 'life'. Now Kai has to get over the new Rei and fall in love all over again, but Rei has to love himself first, having deemed himself a freak of nature.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimers: **I don't own Beyblade; I'm just using the characters as my puppets.

**Notes:** This chapter is angsty, though I'm sure not my best work as I kinda rushed it to get the first chapter done…

* * *

It's Not Me

He braced himself, his amber eyes wide and panicked as he screamed at Kai to turn the wheel faster; there was no way they were going to completely avoid the collision.

Within seconds, glass was shattering, metal crunching, and bones breaking as the mini-van collided at full speed into the side of Kai's SUV. And not just any side, the passenger side.

Rei was now holding his breath, hissing against the pain coursing through his body as blood escaped his many wounds, his head on Kai's shoulder, knees crushed and trapped beneath the dash and smashed door with glass all over his lap, cuts all over his face from the glass, a broken arm and a few more injuries.

But Kai couldn't see it; he was in too much pain from glass shards now in his eyes that were closed tight. He could, however, feel the warm blood oozing from Rei's head into his clothes and onto his skin.

"Rei!" he called out, his voice shaking as he reached over blindly to his friend. "Are you okay?!"

"No!" he cried in paid, tears finding his eyes.

Thankfully, help had just arrived.

They quickly pulled Kai from the vehicle and into the back of one ambulances, immediately tending to his eyes and broken left arm.

"How bad is he?" he ground out against the pain of the shards being removed from his eyes.

The medics glanced to each other, neither wanting to tell him how bad his friend was.

One finally gathered the courage to speak up. "He may not make it."

"No…" Kai breathed, tears brimming his eyes, rage building inside of him at the driver of the other vehicle that had ran the red light and hit them.

It took much longer than expected to get Rei free from the SUV; the mini-van had to be moved away from Kai's vehicle, and then the door cut out to even get to him. Then there was the tedious task of getting the dash off his legs. Nearly an hour after the accident, Rei lay unconscious on a gurney, covered in blood and hastily bandaged.

Kai was already being treated at the hospital before Rei even arrived in his ambulance, struggling against the doctors and nurses to get to Rei.

"How will you find him?" one of the doctor's snidely commented as he was settled again onto a table, slumped over in defeat.

Kai's eyes had to be covered in order for them to heal properly, so he wouldn't strain them or injure them further.

It was at least two hours later that Kai was finally wheeled to Rei's room. Had his eyes not been covered, he would be blinded by tears for sure at what lay in the room.

Rei was a mess of bandages. The wounds had been stitched shut or scabbed over, the dried blood cleaned from him, his legs in casts, various IVs hooked up to him in his hands and arms, and some machinery was hooked up to him as well.

"He's stable for now," a nurse told him as she pushed him to Rei's bedside. "But we don't know if he'll recover…"

"What do you mean?" he mumbled, feeling for one of Rei's hands and gingerly taking it in his own, avoiding the IVs as best he could.

"He's on life support right now. He had a lot of internal bleeding and head trauma, not to mention the obvious blood loss."

Kai licked his dry lips, fighting back tears.

"I'll leave you alone, just yell if you need anything," she said softly, placing a hand on Kai's trembling shoulder.

No sooner than he heard her footsteps fade away, he was bent over the bed crying into his own bandages.

"You can't die on me, Rei!" he sobbed. "You can't!"

Rei didn't respond to his calls or his hand, making Kai cry harder. This was supposed to be something that only happened in the tragic movies; in the good ones, the person always responded, so why wouldn't Rei?!

He stayed there for a long time, holding onto Rei and calling out to him in strangled cries of anguish, hoping to wake him and speak to him, to tell him not to leave him.

The nurse had returned to check on them some time later and he could tell as soon as she spoke that she was crying too.

"Kai," she breathed shakily, trying to steady herself. "Rei's parents have made the choice to," she sobbed loudly a couple times, her voice choked and hoarse as she spoke through a constricted throat. "They want to take him off life support."

"They can't do that!" Kai cried, releasing Rei's hand and reaching out for her, his fingers wrapping a bit too tightly around her thin arm.

"They can," she sniffed, Kai's grip slackening. "They can't afford the medical costs and there's no telling if he'll even make it through the night _with_ the support; if he does, there's a high probability he'll remain in a coma or wake as a vegetable."

"I'll pay for it!" he growled in anger. They weren't taking something precious from him!

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's not your choice to make…"

Kai was boiling with rage. "Get them on the phone, right now!" he demanded, the nurse jumping away from him in shock and fear.

"I can't. I don't have the authority."

"Then find someone who does!"

"Kai, calm down!" Max yelped as he entered the room, keeping the boy in his wheelchair.

"I won't!" he sobbed, broken once again. "I love him, Max! If they do this...he'll never know!"

While Max and Takao worked to calm a seething Kai down, knowing they were fighting a losing battle as far as Rei was concerned, a couple of doctors came in and began unhooking Rei from the machines with solemn faces, one of them scribbling things down on his chart.

"At least give him the night!" Kai pleaded, but to no avail; they wouldn't even glance at him.

"They made the right choice," Max said sadly. "Rei's in no state to…He looks terrible, Kai, like his body is begging for rest, for death…"

"I don't care!" he said, shaking his head, gripping his wheelchair arm with his good hand so hard that his knuckles were pure white. "I feel like a kid that's having something important taken away for no reason!"

"I'm sorry," was all one of the doctors offered as they then filed out of the room, closing the door behind them.

"Sorry isn't good enough!" he yelled, slamming his fist down onto the wheelchair, startling Max and Takao, wishing he could smash something, preferably one of their faces. "Sorry won't give him back to me!"

As Max tried to pacify Kai, Takao went over to the bed, bending over Rei and talking to him as though he were awake, though his soon tear strained voice belied him. After saying his goodbyes, the young bluenette shuffled back to his other two friends before the blonde tried to swallow the growing lump in his throat before taking his turn to say goodbye.

"This isn't really happening, is it?" Kai murmured, his mind numb. "This is just a really, really bad joke…"

"It's no joke," Max assured, wheeling Kai back to his bedside a few heavy silent minutes later, cringing as he noticed Rei's chest heaving in his attempt to breathe properly. "He's fading fast, so…"

Kai scooted the chair back a few feet, standing and walking as best he could would a badly bruised leg, arms outstretched to aid him, before sitting on the bed, wrapping his good arm behind Rei's head in an awkward form of a hug.

"I don't want you to leave me," he hiccupped in Rei's ear. "I'm sorry I even made you come with me today…I know you only did it to make me happy."

He could feel it now; Rei's chest was heaving quickly, one of his shoulders convulsing under him.

"I just wanted to make you happy; I just wanted to be with you…I love you, Rei," he said as calmly as he could through his seemingly swollen throat, moving to rest his forehead to Rei's. "And I always will," he choked out before laying a gentle kiss to the neko-jin's lips.

Max and Takao watched from the sidelines, both silently crying and holding hands, turning and embracing each other as Rei's body finally stilled completely.

The sudden stillness beneath him triggered his rage once more. Rei was gone forever…And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it!

He screamed into Rei's raven locks that he couldn't even see, wrapping his fingers in them, feeling a bit of dried blood caking some of the strands together. He wouldn't be able to see him in real life ever again...

"Kai," Max murmured as he reached out to touch the Russian's shoulder, letting him know they were there for him. He was their friend too.

The two-toned bluenette shrugged him off, however, refusing to leave Rei.

xoxoxox

It wasn't much longer that Takao had brought one of the nurses in, telling the boys that they had to leave and Kai had to return to his room for the night. It ended up with Kai having to be tranquilized to get him off Rei's body, Takao and Max wheeling him away once he was sedated.

"It's going to be rough for a while, huh?" Takao mused as he walked beside Max as they began to enter the elevator.

"Yeah," was all Max could bring himself to say, his eyes focused on Kai's hair, his hands gripping tightly onto the handles of the wheelchair.

xoxoxox

For the next few days, Max and Takao took turns coming to check up on Kai, who seemed to be eating very little and still fighting the medical attention every step of the way; so to say the nurses were happy about Kai leaving was an understatement.

As soon as he was cleared to go, Takao had pushed him to the elevator as a doctor followed up with Max about his medications and how to take care of Kai's eyes and bandages before he pulled the blonde aside to an empty hallway, his eyes darting around nervously.

It was starting to really freak Max out.

"Your friend, Rei," he began, placing a hand on Max's shoulder, creeping him out even more. "You know his parents couldn't afford to sustain him, and so they also couldn't afford any type of funeral arrangements."

Max nodded dumbly, trying to keep on his toes in case the creeper did anything strange.

"They released his body to science," he explained. "Rei is…more or less alive."

The blonde's eyes widened considerably. This couldn't be a real doctor!

"Don't freak out!" he pleaded, his face worried as he glanced around some more. "Let me explain! You see, there was a teen just a year older than Rei that was here dying of liver failure; he and Rei were a perfect match, but Rei came too late. He died too just shortly before Rei. He was in much the same predicament as Rei also as far as finances. I won't lie when I say the science department went a little 'mad scientist' and played with things they probably shouldn't have…"

All Max could picture was a group of quacks hacking and sewing body pieces from two bodies together, one of those bodies being Rei's.

"We went ahead and did a liver transplant…then someone went a step further and suggested a brain transplant. Rei had only just died, so his brain was still functioning at a minimal level with hardly any damage; his body couldn't handle the amount of pain he was in, so his brain shut him down and put him in a type of coma. And now he's alive in another body."

The blue eyed teen was absolutely horrified at what he was hearing. Who the hell let this crazy doctor in here and why was he saying such things about his dead friend?!

"I know it's a lot to take in and you probably don't believe me, thinking I'm crazy…" he sighed, turning his back to Max. "I'll call you in a few days time when he's stabilized."

As the man calling himself a doctor walked away, Max turned and quickly walked to the nearest elevator, slamming the button repeatedly with his index finger and glancing down the hall to make sure the guy wasn't going to come back with a chainsaw or something.

"What took you so long?" Takao groaned as he stood leaning up against the van to get them home.

"I was talking to the doctor about Kai's care," he smiled as best he could; he wasn't about to freak them out by telling them the story he had just heard that was, no doubt, a lie. Kai would for sure go into an all out rage once more and probably demand to kill the doctor for ruining Rei's final moments.

xoxoxox

Two weeks later, early in the morning, Max groaned as he rolled over and reached blindly for his phone, squinting in attempt to read the unfamiliar phone number.

"Hello?" he said, his voice laced with sleep.

"Max, Rei is ready to see you," came an all too familiar voice.

Max was now wide awake, a tremor running down his spine as the doctor told him what room his friend would be in and what time would be best to visit.

'Should I go?' he mused, knowing that it was either a trap or, the believing side of his mind argued, Rei was alive in some way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimers: **I don't own Beyblade; I'm just using the characters as my puppets.

It's Not Me

**Three days after the accident:**

Rei woke, groggy from the medication he was on as well as from the lingering effects of the anesthesia.

'That's some heavy stuff,' he mused as he reached up to rub his eyes. 'I don't feel like I'm in any pain at all!'

It was just moments after he began rubbing his eyes that he realized two things. One: his bangs were missing, and Two: these weren't his hands.

'Stay calm, Rei. It's just probably a side effect of the meds,' he tried soothing himself as he studied the pale and slightly larger hands inches from his eyes. 'Nothing to worry about…'

Something else then found its way to his eyes. He remembered the accident in horrific detail, knowing his legs had been crushed, but there were no casts on his legs so that he could move around freely. He lifted the covers, his eyebrows furrowed as he looked over his pale legs.

'What the hell is going on? Am I dreaming? Am I dead?!' he thought, slightly panicked as he noticed the lack of any damage to his all too pale body.

He started poking and prodding himself in areas he knew he had been injured, but found himself in no pain at all. He then began peeking down his gown from the neckline that he pulled out, frowning as he noticed stitching on his not so toned stomach area.

'Surely that's not the only place…' he thought as he lifted the bottom of the gown, running a finger over the small line of sutures.

As he had sat up to study this spot, he noticed that his hair didn't move with him like it always did. It was then that his focus was directed to his head by way of his curious fingers.

'It's all gone…'

His slender fingers gently massaged his bald head, tears forming in his eyes as he then felt more stitches that ran all the way around his head.

'What is this?! This _has_ to be a really bad dream!' he tried to convince himself, jumping and moving his hands to his lap as the hospital door opened and a nurse stepped inside.

"You're awake! They'll be so happy to hear this!" she smiled, bouncing slightly on the spot.

"What's going…" he stopped speaking, a horrified and panicked look crossing his face. "This isn't my voice…"

The nurse's mood instantly changed as she eyed him sympathetically. "No, it's not."

"Why?! What happened to me?!" he cried as he tossed the blanket aside and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"You died," she said solemnly, closing the door behind her. She had known that the conversation would eventually turn in this direction. "Your dead body was released to science by your parents three days ago. The day of the accident."

He simply stared at her, confusion written all over his face, not saying a word.

"May I sit down?" she asked, reaching for the back of a wheeled chair, to which Rei nodded numbly. As she sat down, she turned the chair to face him. "A group of local scientists had you and another young man that had just died within an hour of each other; they…well they put your brain in the other man's body," she said bluntly, worrying her lower lip with her teeth; she found it suddenly difficult to keep eye contact with him.

"So I am dreaming…" he breathed in relief, though his body was still tense, his hands clawing at the sheets beneath him.

"No, Rei. This is real."

"No it's not," he laughed, his toned slightly higher pitched as his eyes widened like a crazy person. "I'd be a freak if that were the case; no way in hell would I want to live like that! My parents wouldn't want me to live like that!"

"Calm down, please!" she pleaded as he stood, wobbling on his feet. "You're not a freak; you've just experienced a miracle! You're still alive! You have another chance!"

He shook his head vigorously, eyes closed tight as he stood in place. "I won't believe it!"

"Then let me show you," she murmured, standing and moving behind him. She then steered him towards the bathroom so he could see for himself. "This is you now, Rei."

His eyes met with a stranger's green eyes, pale skin, currently no hair, and a horrendous cut with stitches around the circumference of his head. This wasn't him…

"It's not me!" he ground out through gritted teeth as reality began to set in. "It's not!"

She ushered the now sobbing teen back into the room, tucking him in bed with soothing words that he chose to ignore, even as she gave him some sedatives.

xoxoxox

Nearly two weeks had passed since that horrific encounter, and even to this day, Rei refused to look in the mirror again.

The doctors kept a close eye on him, all of them worried since he would hardly speak and barely eat. The way they saw his predicament, he should be thrilled with getting to continue on with his life, despite the fact that he was in a completely new body.

The doctor that had spoken with Max the day of the accident came to check on him this day, checking the obedient patient's vitals and whatnot.

"I'm calling your friends tomorrow," he smiled, hoping to draw some form of reaction from Rei.

But he said nothing, didn't move, just blinked lazily and sighed as he stared out the window at the setting sun.

"You'll be leaving with them in the evening as soon as the stitches are removed," he then went on, a serious expression back on his face.

"No one will believe it's me," he finally mumbled, idly rubbing his arm where he was just injected with something. "I don't even believe that this is me…"

The doctor said nothing more and left the room.

xoxoxox

"Takao, I need you to come with me," Max said nervously later in the afternoon, the same day he got the phone call from the crazy doctor.

"Where to?" he asked over a bowl of cereal.

"To the hospital," he said, casting a quick glance over to Kai, who was idly stirring and poking his own bowl of cereal. He couldn't say why in front of Kai, not that Takao would believe him either.

"What for?"

"I need to pick up some more meds for Kai," he lied as he rinsed out his bowl.

"When are we leaving?"

Max didn't mind the many questions today; he glanced at the microwave's clock to see what time it currently was.

"Probably in an hour," he shrugged. "I still need to shower."

The hour had come and gone, and Max was growing more and more anxious as they walked into the hospital and towards the elevators.

"I thought the pharmacy was this way," Takao pointed, confused as to why they were turning left instead of right.

"It is," Max said, rubbing his knuckles together out of nervousness. "We're going to see someone."

"But I thought you said…"

"Look," Max said, turning to face his friend. "The day we took Kai home, one of the doctors that had been there to unhook Rei talked to me; he said that Rei is alive."

"But we know he's not!" Takao protested as the blonde pressed the up button on the elevator panel. "We watched him die!"

"I know we did, but…" he sighed as they entered the elevator. "The Rei we're meeting today isn't going to look like our Rei."

"Now you're not making any sense. Are you sure you haven't been taking Kai medicines?" the bluenette asked worriedly.

"No! Look, I know this doesn't make a lick of sense, but I want to see for myself if what that doctor told me is true. If not, we'll go home and not say a word about it ever again, okay?"

"Okay," he agreed as they slowly ascended to their floor.

Surprisingly, the doctor was waiting nearby for them.

"This way," he smiled, Max shivering once more from the creepiness of this man. "I must warn you though, Rei hasn't been particularly fond of what's been done. He hasn't been eating and barely sleeps."

Neither of the teens said anything as they followed the doctor to the room where Rei supposedly was.

"Rei, your friends are here!" the doctor chirped in an overly friendly voice as he pushed the door open.

The teen on the bed, who had been staring blankly out the window, turned his head lazily to them, his expression completely neutral.

"He's been kind of sluggish with reactions because of one of his medications," the doctor explained.

"Max…" Rei mumbled, blinking tiredly at the blonde. "Takao…"

Again both teens remained silent as they stared at a stranger with green eyes and stubbly brown hair.

"I'll leave you guys alone for a bit," the doctor said as he retreated from the room, Max worrying that they were going to be locked in and dissected later that night.

"Are you really Rei?" Takao asked softly as he hesitantly began to cross the room to the bed.

The brunette nodded slowly, his eyelids getting heavier by the second.

"Prove it!" Max blurted out a little too forcefully. "Just because you know our names doesn't mean that that quack didn't tell you!"

Rei smiled the faintest of smiles, slightly more awake since Max had yelled and scared him.

"Ask me something then," the stranger spoke, wincing at his own voice; it had been the first time in a while he had used it, seeing as it wasn't his.

Max thought for a minute or two before he finally came up with something.

"What was the one thing you asked me not to tell anyone the day I read your journal?"

"You read someone's journal?!" Takao asked, appalled that the blonde would do such an incriminating thing.

"To not tell Kai…"

"Tell Kai what?"

He blanched. He didn't want to say this in front of Takao and so motioned for Max to come to him.

"That I had a crush on him," he whispered into the blonde's ear.

"And what else?"

The brown haired teen flushed, pursing his lips. He didn't want to relive the embarrassment again.

He leaned back to Max's ear. "And that I had a dream about him fucking me while I was tied up in bondage…and I liked it so much I came in my sleep," he whispered, Max's face now matching his own in color.

"It _is _you," Max said in awe, eyes wide as he looked at his friend.

"It's me…" Rei then said aloud as Max took a few surprised steps away from him. "But I don't like this me…"

"Now you can tell him," Max offered as he eyed the stranger that was now confirmed as his friend Rei Kon.

"Not gonna happen," he smiled wistfully as he leaned back into his pillows. "It's not me that had a crush on him. It was the old me, the person I used to be. Not this freak of nature."

Max had to admit that he wasn't comfortable with what had been done to his friend, but was glad that he had him back all the same.

"We'll see about that," he smiled, nudging Rei in the shoulder. "You ready to come home?"

Rei's eyes widened, suddenly terrified. "I can't go back with you guys!"

"Well, where else had you planned on going?"

Rei shrugged. "Nowhere; I was just going to run away…I didn't think anyone would believe me about what happened. I was already dead, so no one would've known. I don't even want my parents to know what happened, not that I'd tell them anyway after…"

"You're coming back with us and that's that!" Takao finally said, looking sternly at Rei.

"I can't! I don't want Kai to see me like this; I don't want him to feel even more upset about what had happened. It wasn't his fault…"

"Well, luckily for you, he won't see you for several weeks; he's temporarily blind."

"He's what?!"

"He had glass in his eyes; they have to be covered to heal," Max informed him.

"Then what? What happens when he can see again?"

"We'll tell him that you're a relative of Takao's and are staying at the dojo due to family situations…" he offered weakly.

"But then he'd have to use a different name when he was around Kai," Takao pointed out.

"Look," Max sighed. "Well cross that bridge when we get there. For now, know that you're coming home with us and you'll not have to deal with Kai. We'll go with the story of you're a sick relative that needs the peace and quiet away from the big city, okay?"

Rei snorted. "Yeah, with you two, peace and quiet?"

"Shut up," Takao pouted, puffing his cheeks out.

"Alright, we'll go with that for now."

"Great! Let's get your stuff and get you outta here before that quack kills us!"

Within a half an hour, Max had filled out any necessary paperwork and got the prescriptions for Rei's medications along with strict orders about taking care of his head wound until it was fully healed, thankfully from a nurse and not the psycho doctor.

"And one more thing," she said before they left the nurses' station. "Should he start turning from you guys, as in not eating, sleeping, or talking, call this number immediately!"

"We should be alright," Max smiled as he pocketed the number. "Thanks."

"Dude, you're tall!" Takao commented as he stood beside Rei at the curb, noticing that Rei now stood four inches above him.

Rei still didn't feel comfortable with the whole situation and was still opting for running, but so far Max and Takao had shown him great support, and he wasn't going to turn his back on that. He would find a way to tough it out.

It's just…what _will_ happen when he has to cross the bridge with Kai on the other side?


End file.
